U/G Madness, a.k.a.”Wonder Dog,” is a deck near and dear to my heart. However, unlike most of its Tier 1 counterparts, U/G has a fair amount of flexibility in terms of different cards that can be added to it, altering it in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. So why don’t I walk you through a complete list of all the cards that have been tried in U/G Madness, and how each addition alters the strategy?
Jonny Chapman’s OBC Pirates! deck was aimed at beating a very focused metagame. It has aggro elements that MBC and ‘Tog can’t really cope with – and lots of ways to kill or control green creatures, without with U/G has a real problem winning. So what, you ask? Well, have you looked at Standard lately?
The suggestions for changes to the Marksman, my Kamahl/Goblin Sharpshooter deck, since my last”Diary” installment have been flooding in – why not Pitchstone Wall? Use cycling lands! Wooded Foothills, dummy! Far Wanderings and Living Wish! Well, I checked out some of those changes, and here’s the next thirty games or so with this sucker as it gives people the ride to Scoopville.
I’m here to talk about two different Windborn Opposition decks that I’ve tested in the last couple of weeks, one of which came straight out of Jimmy Bean’s nugget, while the other one was carefully distilled by me through hours of painstaking research and number-crunching. It went 7-2 over the course of two tournaments last weekend, but it’s still not very good – but what that 7-2 really tells you is that there’s a lot of power inherent in the good parts of the deck…
Then an idea – an evil, wretched idea – pops into my thoughts. Why not just take out red in AstroGlide, add a dash of black, and a ton of blue? I could just throw down a Slide, protect it with counterspells, draw some cards, Wrath of God, play a Psychatog, slide it out if necessary, and if I want to, Upheaval. Best of all, I could even kill on turn 6 with a decent draw.
Well, Legions is Standard-legal and things are going to change… or are they? Last Saturday, I ran a Legions-legal Standard tournament where the usually-strong Welsh contingent showed, as well as a handful of one-off Pro Tour attendees… So what decks showed up, and what changed?
Richard Garfield’s deck uses a strategy that has gotten zero attention on the net… But with Garfield’s 3-0 record in the Standard portion of the Wizards Invitational, perhaps it’s worth checking out. Let’s review his deck, as well as all the other decks with winning records, and see if there are any lessons we can possibly glean from three rounds of Swiss in a very insulated metagame.
The good thing is that we’ve already backed up the Lavaborn Muse with a solid body in the Mindslicer. What if the Muse isn’t in play? The Mindslicer is still a 4/3 that can decimate everybody’s hands.
QUESTION: Won’t losing our hand hurt us, too?
ANSWER: LA LA LA LA LA I’m not listening LA LA LA LA LA
The Bird Deck does get a wonderful enchantment in the form of Soulcatcher’s Aerie. Admit it: 1/1 dorks are going to die. That’s about all they’re really good for, besides occasionally attacking for single points of damage. But no, dying is their skill! It’s their bad stylish ability. And the Aerie rewards you for having your stupid birds die in horrible, painful fashions. And that’s really what military strategy is all about: Stupid, annoying birds dying in droves.
A couple of months ago, I got an excited e-mail from Neutral Ground regular Elden Lee. He had stumbled upon an exciting new deck on Magic Online that a Japanese player had beaten him with. I have no idea who this player was – but as far as I know, he is the originator of the deck that came to be known as Tight Sight. We tested it, and here’s what we found out.
Since switching to Lava Dart, I haven’t felt completely out of a game with The Marksman at my side. I don’t get that this-deck-is-too-good-for-the-casual-room feeling yet, but I’m closer to it than when I started…. And you know what janky card has been working surprisingly well?
Discussions, decklists, tales of Mike Flores’ most inexplicable game loss, and interviews with the runner-up and the winner give you the lowdown on the biggest local money tourney in New England!
Here’s the deal: I know you have tech. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you walk, the way you flip your long, greasy, scraggly hair.
I want to buy it from you.
I think that I finally (fingers crossed) figured out a solid mono-white Birds deck. I say this because I started 5-0 at this weekend’s tourney, not losing until I faced David Dyer and his RWg Astral Slide deck. That, and I debate with the pros, find a home for a poor lost wizard, and discuss the R/G Anger deck that everyone’s been asking about!
Compared to old Necro decks, which needed to get Necropotence into play as fast as humanly possible and had little chance of winning without the power of the skull, this is a considerable upgrade. Graveborn Identity leans heavily on Graveborn Muse, but it’s not a crutch.
